Rascal Flatts with their award for Top Vocal Group backstage at the 44th Annual ACM Awards on April 5, 2009. Photo © Sara de Boer / Retna Ltd.
April 10, 2009 — The "44th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards" kicked off the week with big news for Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts and Taylor Swift, among others, and Suzanne Alexander was in Las Vegas to help host Nan Kelley bring the Orange Carpet to this week’s installment of GAC’s Top 20 Country Countdown.
Carrie became the first female to win Entertainer of the Year since the Dixie Chicks in 2001, while Taylor’s Fearless became the first Album of the Year honoree recorded by a teenager. Rascal Flatts set a new record by winning the Top Vocal Group trophy for the seventh straight year, eclipsing the mark set by Alabama.
Just days later, Flatts’ tour opener, Jessica Simpson, came up missing from the website of her Nashville label, indicating she’s no longer part of the country roster. It also ends a very weird chapter in country music. Flatts appears headed to No. 1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 with their new Unstoppable album. Yet despite the band’s obvious popularity, much of the press surrounding their tour was given to Jessica’s weight and her nagging inability to remember the words to her own songs. The attention was a little strange.
"You know for a minute there we thought, 'Gosh, look at all these people that want to talk to us, this is crazy,'" Gary LeVox joked in the ACM press room, according to Dial-Global. "Then it was like, 'Oh, you're here for Jessica. I'm sorry, she's down here to the left if you need her. So, you're really not here for us?’ ‘No, I'm sorry.'"
"I loved how the rag mags called it her tour," Jay DeMarcus added. "It was great. It was neat. It was awesome. I got a little bloated on the tour and nobody put a picture of me in any magazine. It's just weird."
The ACM Awards will be rebroadcast on GAC May 31.
Top 20 Country Countdown counts down the week's top country videos from No. 20 to No. 1 as voted by viewers on each week on GACTV.com. A new countdown premieres every Friday at 8 p.m. ET on GAC and airs again Saturdays at 10 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. ET; Sundays at 1 p.m. ET; and Mondays at 10 a.m. ET. Viewers can vote for their favorite videos, as well as purchase Top 20 artists' albums and ringtones at GACTV.com.
THIS WEEK’S CHART:
1. Trace Adkins "Marry For Money"
2. Kellie Pickler "Best Days Of Your Life"
3. Carrie Underwood "I Told You So"
4. Eric Church "Love Your Love The Most"
5. Craig Morgan "God Must Really Love Me"
6. Darius Rucker "It Won’t Be Like This For Long"
7. Jamie O’Neal "Like A Woman"
8. Blake Shelton "She Wouldn’t Be Gone"
9. Lady Antebellum "I Run To You"
10. Katie Armiger "Trail Of Lies"
11. Phil Vassar "Prayer Of A Common Man"
12. Marc Broussard/LeAnn Rimes "When It’s Good"
13. Brooks & Dunn "Cowgirls Don’t Cry"
14. Rascal Flatts "Here Comes Goodbye"
15. James Otto "These Are The Good Ole Days"
16. Little Big Town "Good Lord Willing"
17. Keith Urban "Sweet Thing"
18. Jake Owen "Don’t Think I Can’t Love You"
19. Taylor Swift "White Horse"
20. One Night Rodeo "Alive And Living"
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